Our Rating: 2.00
Former messianic bop bag Jim Caviezel signs on for more punishment, this time playing a work-camp inmate enduring institutionalized evil in the Bulgaria of the 1950s. But Caviezel’s latest role as a sacrificial lamb which appears to have required about a day or two of shooting is supplementary to the central, wannabe-inspirational story of a boy (Ben Tibber) whose escape from the camp is fueled by memories of his iconically blond mother and abetted by those perennially helpful folks, the Christians. It’s a Hallmark Hall of Fame special dressed up as a feature, one that juggles feel-good humanitarianism and oddly inappropriate stabs at whimsy. What it needs most is a better tent pole than the wooden acting of star Tibber, who is supposed to travel an arc from hardened distrust to openhearted gratitude but instead spends the entire picture looking constipated.
This article appears in Dec 1-7, 2004.